I am not a fan of make-up. (Except when I’m onstage, then I love the ritual of it.) I don’t wear it everyday and will often catch myself getting all judgy of women who wear a lot of it. However, this criticism of Hamlet’s rankles me a bit. Because if Ophelia’s wearing make-up, odds are good that she’s wearing it for you, Hamlet. Because her only value is her “fairness,” her beauty. Having been prized solely for our beauty for centuries it seems particularly cruel to give us a hard time about attempting to highlight that beauty, to hedge our bets, to do whatever we can to up our assets. 

In some circles, even now, wearing make-up is not a real choice. To refrain from wearing it would be a clear rejection of the culture a woman might be in.

I grew up surrounded by women who only wore make-up when they felt like it – so it was easy for me to make the same choice. But I recognize that that is not so for everyone. I read an article about shaving legs and all of the complicated feelings it can generate. The author points out that as long as the dominant culture makes it clear that anyone who doesn’t shave her legs is deviant, than whether or not to do it is never a Real choice. 

So it is with make-up sometimes. And I try to read it culturally rather than personally. And wear it when I want to. No matter what Hamlet says about it. 

I wish Ophelia were a painter and that Hamlet were talking about her work. It’s pretty likely he’s talking about make-up here – but I’d love a narrative in which Ophelia makes really scandalous artwork and Hamlet’s heard all about it. Marcellus went to that Out There Art Gallery Downtown and he happened to notice the little card next to a series of really twisted paintings.

He was stunned to see that sweet little obedient Ophelia was the person behind those big canvases of bodies twisted and torn open.

He’d never expected that she might paint a nude, that she’d even ever seen a nude, nonetheless paint them in such surreal and violent positions. He couldn’t help but tell Hamlet about the show when he got back. In part, he’d thought he must have known. Surely her boyfriend and seen her art work! But no – it was all news to Hamlet, too. He’d thought about going to see them himself – when all of this death and marriage struck – and he let it slip. Now, here, as he breaks up with her, he suddenly remembers. 

So many leave takings without actually taking leave! So many farewells. 

And when he does actually exit, he gives her no farewell. 

The repetition of this nunnery stuff is challenging my writerly impulses. How much material can I generate on nunneries? I fear I may have reached my threshold and yet there is still more nunnery to be encountered ahead. This one is the only one with speed. . . so it makes me think of getting to a nunnery in a hurry – but otherwise. . .creativity TAXED. I can feel how much Hamlet is beating this nunnery drum, can see why we usually call this “The Nunnery Scene.” He is relentless in returning to this idea. And I suppose, as a concept, it makes a lot of sense to Hamlet. He may not want to marry this woman anymore but he probably doesn’t want anyone else to, either. A nunnery is a perfect, elegant solution to that problem. It’s a hassle free way to cast off a girlfriend. I’d like to see a scene in which a woman breaks up with a man and suggests he go become a monk. And quickly too.

Certainly I wish some of my exes had done that instead of marrying and breeding.

Sound the Rape Culture alarm! Ring the sexist bell! I can’t get past this line until something has sounded. I mean – possibly Hamlet is meaning that Ophelia specifically makes monsters of wise men but that’d be a lot for one mild mannered pretty girl to do. It seems a lot more likely that this is one of those “women turn men into monsters” situations. See, baby, you made me rape you with that pretty face. See, you made me a monster with your beauty, pretty girl. See, I’m not responsible for my actions because you showed up and disrupted my flow.
I don’t think wise men know what monsters women make men turn into. I think wise men know that respect and responsibility are a whole lot more wise than throwing up ones hands and saying, “I’m a monster! That girl made me do it!”

Wise men say, “If I am a monster, it is a monster of my own making. And while any number of factors may have encouraged my monster making, I always had a choice.”

A lot of my friends are married and very few of them married fools. Sometimes, though, marrying a fool does seem like a good idea. You’d have to be fairly specific about the KIND of fool you were choosing, though. A drooling fool could well become a disaster. But a clever fool might be fun – might be wise. A fool of the naïve variety might be sweet and keep your spirits up when the world had grown darker. A pretentious fool would be insufferable but a wise fool could keep you on the up and up, if you listen to him. Everyone is a fool in their own way and if you love and marry the fool part first, you’ll be marrying the true person, I think. Love your fool. Your own and your partner’s.

It’s funny that we don’t use nunnery anymore yet everyone knows what it is, almost instantly. It is a much more descriptive word than “convent.” Nunnery makes total sense as a place full of nuns the way a monastery is a place full of monks. What happened in the language that we went with the less clear word?
Is it that convent sounds so much more sober? And that the nunneries in these earlier times actually had a bit of a reputation for being the opposite of what they were designed for? Maybe all the nuns who were into being quiet and sober and chaste and religious got together and were like, “We have to re-brand this thing. We’re getting exactly the wrong reputation with this nunnery thing. Let’s try a different word. Same job – different name for our home.”

How pure and chaste are ice and snow really? Any more pure or more chaste than water? And how interesting that both of these images are so cold. Is this where the archetype of the Ice Queen begins? Is it a glamorization of extreme chastity? Extreme purity? Is that what the attraction to women people call “Ice Queens” is?

I myself have never been an ice queen. I’m more of a warm cup of tea queen. Even when I was relatively chaste. I was as chaste as a warm cup of tea. As pure as a piece of toast. 
And for escaping calumny? I don’t know. I’ve dipped my pure toast in the occasional cup of tea, it’s true (Not often, it’s not so delicious.) Snow, though, when it gets dirty – it gets disgusting. I live in New York and the snow is so beautiful when it falls but days later it’s black and mottled and covered in cigarette butts.
I don’t see Ophelia going that way, though. She’s neither new-fallen snow nor dirty dingy snow. She’s probably like the rest of us, happily somewhere in the middle. 

Oh, Hamlet! You shouldn’t have! Really? A plague? I mean, wow. That can’t have been easy to wrap! Gee whiz, a whole plague. Now that is really special. No one else got us even just a tiny disease. And really it’s a gift that keeps on giving. It starts with us and then just goes on and on and on so that a gift for us becomes a gift for our whole community. My grandma gave us dishes but you, Hamlet, you so sweetly got us this plague.

Spring finally made its way here this week. At first its fingers couldn’t be really felt – at least not on me. I was warm, now, I noticed that – but winter’s freeze still had a hold on me. There may have been flowers and trees blossoming. Birds may have been singing. The ice cream truck blaring out its epic, loud “Turkey in the Straw.”
But I felt as cold, as frozen, as dark, as dreary as February, huddled in my bed.

But today – spring finally made its way in, it came in the door, sat down and made itself comfortable on the sofa – before it seemed to have just been visiting on the doorstep but now its poised to stay awhile and its taken winter’s favorite spot on the sofa. Winter’s wrapped itself in its overcoat and boots and scarf and taken itself, head hanging out the door.